Development of Editing Technology

The purpose of editing is to piece together shots, sequences and scenes to create a final piece that both makes sense and has an emotional impact. The first forms of editing were very basic and consisted of the editor physically cutting and glueing parts of the film together, this was a very long and tedious task but important nonetheless and formed the foundation of editing techniques. 1924 saw the birth of the Moviola, the introduction of this machinery allowed for a much precise and generally easier form of editing. The Moviola also brought about edge numbering which allowed audio and video to be edited as one.

Next came flatbed edit suites, brought about by Steenbeck, known for a history of film editing, viewing and controlling tables since the early 50's. It was 1953 that saw the birth of the first Steenbeck flatbed 16mm 4 plate, the ST200. This was seen as new media at the time mainly du to the fact that included optical sound and playback of 16mm perforated magnetic tape. The ST100, a 4plate 35mm editor, soon followed in 1954. Soon the first editor with back projection on a ground class came about, the 35mm ST400, followed by the ST500 switchable for standard and Cinemascope.

Meanwhile live television editing, beginning in the 40's, led to kinescope recordings. This was basically a camera recording a video screen of a live broadcast, unfortunately this had many issues like banding and ghosting.

The next big step came about in 1956 when Ampex released the first 2" quadruplex video tape. Editing this was similar to editing films, the tape had to be developed using iron filings in a toxic, carcinogenic carbon tetrachloride solution. This was done so that a magnetic band could be seen on the film through a microscope, this helped for precision cutting. Unfortunately the audio and video could not be done at the same time as they were several inches apart in the machine, to counter this the video was cut and the missing sound was added back in the correct place.

In linear editing it has been argued that you spend more time waiting for tapes to cue rather than actually making edits. Linear editors aren't flexible and can be a hassle if you wish to re-edit a piece of film, this new edit must be on top of an old edit if you wish to o back and alter a previous edit. This can be a major problem if your new scene is longer or shorter than the old one, it can either run into the next scene or some of the old shot could still be visible.

The next big step came about in 1971, with the introduction of the CMX 600, even though only 6 were ever made, they paved the way for non-linear editing. The Avid 1 soon followed in 1989 and the main problem now was storage. It wasn't until 1993 that Avid increased the amount of storage available, releasing a 7 terabyte system. The success of this could be seen in 1997 when Walter Murch won an oscar for best editing for The English patient, he edited the film using an Avid.
Non linear systems require two main things, computer power and data storage. Non linear editing is far less time consuming and everyone knows that time is money. The ability to work in a more complex way with both video and audio can only be seen as a positive thing. Digital technology was also a huge help when it came to special effects. Forrest Gump (1994) made great use of this by using a digitalised set of images reconstituted frame by frame to remove Gary Sinise's legs from each frame.

Digital editing was the future, it was easier to copy, easier to sync and resistant to noise and in 1990 New trek released the first 'Video Toaster' on the Omega system. It had limited linear editing capabilities but it brought video production to schools, production shops and some small television studios. It had numerous effects and even had lightweight 3D. Five years later saw the birth of DVD optical disks, they used a new type of compression, MPEG-2. A year later, the first US public HD broadcast was aired, the process for this involved sending 35mm film through a telecine, which essentially scanned the film and made a digital copy. This can then be manipulated in a computer using special effects and compositing, once complete, the optical writer would place the video images back onto film.

From here the editing world didn't look back, Chris Watts revolutionised the DI process with Pleasantville in 1998, this was the first time the majority of a new feature film was scanned, processed and recorded digitally. But it wasn't until 4 years later with the release of Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones that we had the first motion picture to be shot purely on digital. In the late 2000s it became possible to shoot purely on digital and edit online, using the original full quality files.

Reflective Analysis

Upon completing my contextual study into the American new wave I believe it was effective at exploring the new wave conventions present in Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate and Easy Rider and the influence the American new wave had on the world of film. I struggled with the task at first as I was unsure how to go about starting it, I had compiled all of my research onto the blog and had analysed key scenes ready to start my actual contextual study but I was just unsure of how to go about it in the best possible way but when I started to write it I had no problem with delving head first into it. I think I went into great detail about how Mike Nichols, Dennis Hopper and John Schlesinger had incorporated the ideologies of the counter culture youth of the time into their films. I probably used my organisation skills best on this task and actually had plenty of research for me to use when it cam to writing my own contextual study of the American new wave. The hardest part of the task was definitely the initial research as it was one of the first times I had done a task like this off my own back rather than relying on teachers but after starting to gather some research I realised it was a lot easier than I thought and I ended up having so much research that I didn’t use half of it. If I were to redo this task I would definitely use the same films but I would go into a much deeper analysis of the scenes and perhaps use different scenes such as the Warhol themed party from Easy Rider. I thoroughly enjoyed this task and I’m looking forward to do similar tasks in the future. It has widened my film knowledge and contextual knowledge of 1960’s America. I feel like I have taken inspiration from the three films I watched within my own new wave film as I tried to incorporate the use of travel seen in The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy whilst also incorporating the drug use and eccentricity of Easy Rider. The Graduate was probably the biggest inspiration I had when it came to making my own film as my film is essentially an exploration of the mind of a youth very much in the same position of Benjamin Braddock, unsure of what they want to do with life and as such take a laissez-faire approach, but at the same time wanting to do something important with their life, just as Ben says “ I just want it [his future] to be different” my film is about wanting to make something of your life but not knowing how to do this just like the disaffected youth of 1960’s America.

The Graduate Scene Analysis

The Graduate Scene Analysis from Jakob Morrison on Vimeo.

This is a brief analysis of the opening scene from Mike Nichols' The Graduate

Little Brother

As part of an outreach project the HNC group are working with Nuneaton and Bedworth Museum & Art Gallery, and in particular Chris Bradley and Matt Johnson, to produce a stop-motion animated film with the thematic premise of protest. We had a brief introduction to the task and began brainstorming ideas. Mine, Dan and Elliot's idea was to make a film about the big brother society, after we had all presented our ideas to the group we decided that we move forward with a film based on the concept of a big brother society.

During the second session we focused on the narrative for the film and we also discussed characters we wish to use and as smaller groups set about deciding on the miss-en-scene for each of the settings used within the film. After this second meeting, we had decided on taking the big brother society literally and the film would follow a young boy and his older brother, this meant we could get on to working on the script.

In the third session we had our storyline set in stone and as such we could get started on creating characters and set designing. Again we were split into smaller groups amongst ourselves so that we could each be designated a particular setting to design, either the little brother's bedroom, the big brother's bedroom or the park. We chose the big brothers room and started designing it, we settled on a bed, desk, chair and bookcase as being essential to the big brother's room and storyline.

Session four consisted of further prop building, set design and characters. We got to work straight away on this and for the big brother's room not much more needed to be done, so we got to work on the script, this was primarily done by Joseph Weston, with input from myself, Liam Mulholland and Lalita Ajit, after the script had been completed we confirmed with both Matt and Chris that it would be okay and Chris made a few tweaks he felt were necessary. When this had been completed we had to record the voices for the characters, I personally voiced the little brother whilst others in the group voiced the big brother and other characters. 

All of the footage we had compiled and voice recordings were given to Chris who edited the final piece together in time for the premiere at the museum on the 4th December. Overall, this was a brilliant opportunity and working with a professional film maker, Chris, and a client, Matt, allowed me to expand on skills I already had but also challenged me to work to a much more professional level than before. Working with a group also allowed me to bounce ideas off other people and work on presenting my ideas to other people, I was very happy with the film produced and I think the final project is effective in showing how well we worked as a group together, Matt clearly thought the same as can be seen here by his feedback for the outreach project.

 

 

Evaluation

When it came to starting my New Wave film, I wrote up an initial design brief which can be found here http://kechncjakobmorrison.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/new-wave-brief.html The subject matter didn't particularly matter for my new wave film, it was mainly the locations, so for this I planned ahead and had a look at some places to film in Birmingham and Manchester, my planning for this can be found here http://kechncjakobmorrison.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/new-wave-planning.html

When deciding what to actually produce as part of my new wave film, my contextual study of the American new wave was a big influence on me especially Easy Rider with it's use of jump cuts and drug use.

The Graduate and Midnight cowboy also inspired me to include transportation within my new wave film as they both use buses to show that the characters are moving on with their lives, because of this I decided to use footage on a bus journey at the start of my film, about half way through and at the very end. I decided these journey's such happen at different times of the day and as such the footage from the start of the film was shot in the morning, the footage from the middle of the film was shot in the afternoon and the footage used at the end of the film was shot at night.

My final piece produced was a statement on the idea that the majority of the youth in today's society is more interested in what they know and not particularly expanding their horizons. The idea from this came about from the general feeling of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, he does not know what he wants to do with his future but he doesn't just want to rush into it and as such spends the majority of the film doing absolutely nothing just as the subjects do in my film. The idea behind layering images of art galleries and other established locations over the top of my main footage was to get across the idea that even though the subjects do not particularly want to progress with their lives there is this overwhelming sense that they must do something important with their lives. I felt like art galleries and museums were the perfect locations for this due to the fact they are literally monuments to people's life work. I have also included a few images that are visible for a few frames that include phrases such as 'random movement', 'little things mean a lot' and 'do not open' The idea behind this is that they are passing thoughts of the youth today, or at least myself. The film is very much a reflection of my life and the general feelings felt by the 1960's youth of America, they wanted their future to be different but didn't know how to go about this. The film attempts to depict my outlook on life in that as much as I want myself to be known to the world, symbolised by the art galleries, I am unsure of how to do this, as shown by the words 'random movement' I feel as if anything I do with my life will be a random stab in the dark.

Having done my initial camera and lighting tests I had better knowledge of ISO, aperture and shutter speed, I tried to incorporate this into my new wave film as much as possible but I intended for the majority of my filming to be done with natural lighting and so the majority of the time I only needed to adjust my aperture slightly each time just to make sure the footage produced was neither over or under exposed. The majority of filming done used a hand held camera, this is a common technique used within new wave films and I also felt that it would work well within established locations, it is meant to symbolise the idea that to become a well-known person I would have to take a much more hands on approach. This is opposed by the shots within the bedroom, the majority of the filming here was done by a static camera and I tended to just set up the camera and let it record, this was to symbolise the laissez-faire approach I have to life in general. The editing is jumpy and erratic as early new wave films were but it also has somewhat of a deeper meaning. The film is really a reflection of what's going on in my head, I can never really focus on one thing and my mind is constantly switching between ideas, I constantly worry that I will make nothing of my life but at the same time take no action against this.

Editing for my new wave film was very sporadic and every cut used was a jump cut, the jump cuts enable a quick change of scenery, something the french new wave films were renowned for when they first arrived on the scene. At other times, I used jump cuts to show the same scene but characters in slightly different positions to show that although these people have lives and do activities from time to time, they aren't exactly very exciting and not really worthing of watching, a jump cut was used to fast forward through this group of people's lives. Due to the fact that I filmed a lot of footage for my new wave film when it came to editing I had a lot to sort through so I found sorting them at first into relevant folders as I had captured a lot of video as well as photography really helped.

After sorting through the file types, I then went through my footage and named them small signifier as to what happened in each shot, for example 'Book Band Practice' is footage of two of the people discussing their band and how band practice needs to rebooked, these titles made it far easier to edit my clips as just having a few words describing each shot was all I needed to know what i had filmed.

When filming my main challenge was that I felt I did not film at enough different established locations, I tried to overcome this by getting a lot of filming done at the locations I could visit such as the Manchester Art Gallery and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. I ended up having about 3 hours of footage for me to edit together to produce my final piece. this however was another one of the challenges I faced, I ended up filming far too much and didn't allow myself enough time to sift through the hours of footage to find specific shots that I wanted to use. If I was to improve upon my new wave film I would definitely plan my filming a lot better and shoot at more locations as I only used about 6 locations for filming. Also if I organised myself better and had better planning I would have had more time to watch through the footage and select key clips from my footage to use. As with all my work my organisation skills are what let me down and as such if I were to re-do my new wave film I would plan ahead in much more detail and I feel this would have allowed me to produce a much better film.

Planning

For my New Wave film the most important aspect to plan is the locations that I will be using, here are some of the locations that I plan on visiting:

The Manchester Art Gallery and surrounding streets

I will be filming here as I plan on having shots of established locations such as art galleries to be layered over the top of my other footage, I will be taking advantage of the trip to Manchester to use this location.

Birmingham Art Gallery and Victoria Square

Again I will be filming here as I want to have established locations layered over the top of my other footage, I will also be filming in Victoria Square as the German christmas market is currently being held there, this is quite an established location and so I wish to make use of it whilst I can.

The Custard Factory's surrounding area

I will be filming around The Custard Factory as I have previously visited here and felt like the area's grittiness would work well within my New Wave film as a juxtaposition to established locations like art galleries. The walls are filled with artistic graffiti and I feel like graffiti is one of the key ways of displaying the counter culture movement within today's society.

Whitworth Art Gallery

I will also be filming at the Whitworth Art Gallery as again I feel like this is an established art gallery that will work for layering over the top of my other footage

My bedroom

The majority of filming will be done within my bedroom, this will be my my main footage which will then have other footage from the locations discussed above layered over the top. I will be using two different layouts of the same bedroom to add to the general eccentricity of the film.

UPDATE:

After filming one layout of the bedroom I realised that I did not have much usable footage and so planned to get more filming done using the second layout. This can be clearly seen within my final piece as the majority of action takes place in my bedroom with the second layout.

After visiting Manchester I also realised that the handheld footage would work really well within my film and as such decided to do the same thing when visiting the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. I also decided to not get as much filming done in Birmingham because by this point I already had well over 3 hours of footage for me to edit and I didn't have much time left, this was down to my organisation skills, or lack of. I decided that it would be best to get a bit of filming done here but only about half an hour as I already had plenty of footage from both Whitworth Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery and the location itself was not important but merely the concept behind becoming established and having a living monument long after you are gone.

After filming about half of my overall footage I realised that I had planned to get far too much and the footage I had already captured would be enough to produce a new wave film like I had intended and so decided that any filming I did from then on would be a lot more particular than before so I would not have as much to edit. My main problem was that I had not planned much when I started as I felt there was not much planning to do but having started filming without planning I found that I had so much footage that would not particularly be of any use to me. This was when I decided that I would be much more particular with what I shot and so decided that I wanted to visit the area surrounding The Custard Factory for it's grittiness and graffiti. I also planned certain shots within my bedroom mainly the different angles used, I intended to just use static camera shots for within my bedroom but then decided to incorporate some handheld footage as it worked so well within the art galleries and other locations. I also decided that I would use different angles rather than just an eye level angle so decided to incorporate some canted angles as well as high angles.

The Adventures of Anthony Cinnamon

Laura Mulvey and The Male Gaze

Laura Mulvey wrote the essay 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' which coined the term 'male gaze' which soon went on to become a vey well known theory. In film, the male gaze occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man. The theory suggests that the male gaze denies women human identity, relegating them to the status of objects to be admired sole for their physical appearance. he theory suggests women can more often than no only watch a film from a secondary perspective and only see themselves through the eyes of a man.

The presence of a woman in a mainstream film is something that is vital. Often a female character has no real importance herself, it is her interaction with males that is important, the concern, love or lust the male feels for the female that results in him acting the way he does. The male gaze leads to hegemonic ideologies within our patriarchal society. Mulvey argues, "the eyes are female, but the gaze is male", the result of media being presented from the perspective of men and through the male gaze, women find themselves, at times, taking on the male gaze. Women then gaze at other women in the same way a man would and thus end up objectifying women too.

"The determined male gaze projects it's fantasy onto the female figure, which styled accordingly." Mulvey argues that the beauty of females is that they are objects, a perfect product, whose body is stylised and fragmented by close-ups. The magic of the Hollywood style at it's best arose, not exclusively, from it's skilled and satisfying manipulation of visual pleasure.